Page 1 of The Lavender Bride

PROLOGUE

SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND, APRIL 1946

I creep down the stairs, carefully stepping over the third one from the bottom which squeaks. The hall is in darkness but the door to Father’s study is ajar and a sliver of light slices across the brown hall carpet. I ease my coat off the rack and slip it on. Into the pocket goes my lipstick. Father doesn’t approve of women wearing cosmetics. I’ll apply the lipstick outside the newsagents using their shop window as a mirror. I tiptoe to the front door. Very gently, because it sticks on damp nights, I ease it open. The smell of wet earth gusts into the hall. The door creaks and I freeze.

‘Is that you, Audrey?’ Father calls from his study.

I glance behind as my heart rate accelerates. I could make a dash for it. It’s Freddie’s last night before he goes back to university in Birmingham. We’re going to see The Harvey Girls with Judy Garland and I’m that excited about it! Not just because Judy Garland is amazing and talented and such a great singer. But because this is my last chance to see Freddie until June which is ages away.

If I make a dash for it, I’ll catch such a lecture when I get back. I’ll get sent to my room without supper and told to read my Bible until I’m a more dutiful daughter. It’s better to face it head on and then at least I’ll be saved the diatribe on sneaking out.

‘Yes, Father.’ My shoulders hunch as I close the door. I feel myself shrinking, becoming more insubstantial with every footstep I hear coming towards me. I turn and Father’s silhouetted in the lighted doorway, his tall, spare figure looking even more austere with the light behind him. His hair is dark like mine but thinning, leaving acres of forehead as it inches away. There’s a line of puckered scars down the side of his face, a legacy of his time in the trenches in the Great War. He holds the Daily Mail in one hand, his pipe in the other.

‘Where are you going?’ His voice is even but that’s not necessarily a good sign. He flicks on the light and the sudden illumination shifts the scene. I’m no longer hiding in the shadows.

My hands twist in front of me and my voice sounds faint as I say, ‘Only to the pictures.’ I shove my hands in my coat pockets to stop them betraying my emotions. ‘I’ll be back by nine.’

‘Have you finished typing my sermon?’ Father’s the minister at the Methodist church. Since I started secretarial college in September, he expects me to type his sermon. He’s also got me taking the minutes of church meetings as an opportunity to practise my shorthand. As if I don’t spend enough of my days trying to decipher the blasted obscure symbols.

‘Yes, Father.’ This at least I’ve done right. My head comes up. ‘It’s on your desk.’

‘Very good.’ He folds the newspaper and tucks it under his arm as he takes his tobacco tin from his pocket. ‘You’re not going with Freddie Greenwood, are you? You know I don’t like you spending time with that boy.’

My hands tighten into fists in my pockets because this is an argument we’ve had a dozen times before. I don’t understand why Father’s suddenly taken against Freddie. We’ve been friends for years, but about a year ago, Father suddenly decreed Freddie was no longer welcome in our house as he wasn’t ‘a suitable companion’. He’d muttered some guff about Freddie filling my head with dreams and nonsense and then refused to speak about it again. The more I shouted, the less he’d say. The powerlessness turned inwards like a dagger. I hated Father but I loathed myself too for not being able to stand up to him, for being too weak to make him see how utterly and completely wrong he was. Since then, it’s only the dreams of Hollywood and of the life Freddie and I will have when we get there that keep me going.

My fingers fasten around the lipstick in my pocket that I bought with my own money. My chin comes up. I’m seventeen and in a few months, I’ll be in full-time employment. I’m not a child any more. ‘I am going with Freddie. He’s my best friend…’ My voice clogs with emotion because Freddie is the only person who understands. ‘And I barely see him now he’s at university.’

‘Audrey, we’ve talked about this,’ Father says wearily as he takes matches from the pocket of his worn tweed jacket. ‘Freddie is not a suitable companion for you.’

‘But why not?’ My voice rises. I am sick and tired of living by his antiquated rules. ‘You keep saying that but you won’t tell me why.’

‘Freddie is a bad influence.’ Father strikes a match and then puffs at his pipe until it lights. In the pause, my hand twitches to reach for the door handle and escape into the night. ‘He fills your head with nonsense about film stars and Hollywood.’

‘It’s not nonsense!’ My hands form fists, the nails digging into my palms. How can I be related to this man who doesn’t understand me? It makes no sense that we’re the same flesh and blood. ‘It’s the only thing keeping me going. I’m bored to death at college. If you’d let me stay on at school like I wanted?—’

‘Girls do not need an education. You’ll be married soon and then what use will a higher certificate be?’

‘I want to do something more with my life than get married!’

As my voice rises, I hear the kitchen door firmly closed. Abruptly, the hall feels smaller and colder. My stomach tightens. However much I hope that this time will be different, Mum never takes my side. Yet I cling forlornly to the hope because without it, the loneliness of living in this house will suffocate me.

‘Nonsense! All girls want to get married. It’s a woman’s purpose in life.’ Father takes his pipe from his mouth and gestures with it. ‘As the Bible says, “Urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands.”’

‘I don’t want to be subject to a husband!’ The words are an affronted shriek. ‘I want to take photographs like Lee Miller.’

Photography is my passion. At school, I was encouraged by my art teacher, Miss Stewart, who lent me a camera. Now she’s no longer part of my life, I read books from the library and study the photographs in Vogue and the movie magazines but it’s like learning to swim without ever getting in the water. I’m chock full of theory and ideas with no opportunity to put them into practice. Sometimes, the intensity of the urge to capture a moment on film makes my fingers twitch. The first thing I’m going to do when I start working full-time is buy myself a camera.

Father sighs deeply as if I’m physically causing him pain. ‘I should never have let you go to that grammar school. Filling your head with ridiculous ideas about what women can do. Women belong in the home and that’s the end?—’

‘They didn’t stay in the home during the war, did they?’ My hands knot with anger because he’s blinkered and stupid. My neck juts forwards as I fling the words at him. ‘They were Land Girls like Esther and in the forces and working in the steel mills. Even Mum was in the WVS.’

To be fair, Mum mainly served tea but my sister, Esther, who is two years older than me, joined up to be a Land Girl when she was seventeen. She worked on a farm in Lincolnshire and returned home only to get married. She and her husband Bill live in Grantham and I miss her dreadfully.

‘You’d do well to forget that, Audrey.’ Father takes a step towards me. ‘It worked out fine for your sister. She’s a good girl but a lot of them were no better than they ought to be. Getting themselves into trouble?—’

It’s like a light bulb going on. Is this the reason he doesn’t like me spending time with Freddie? Because if it is, I can reassure him and we can finally stop arguing about it. ‘Is this why you don’t want me to see Freddie?’ My words tumble over themselves. ‘Do you think I’m going to end up expecting? It’s not like that between us. We’re friends. Like we’ve always been.’

Although I wish it wasn’t exactly like it’s always been. I really, desperately want Freddie to kiss me. What happens after that which makes a baby, I’m still not sure about and annoyingly, Esther won’t tell me, even when I offered to give her all of my chocolate ration.

‘This is not a suitable discussion for a seventeen-year-old girl.’ Father’s knuckles whiten as he grips the stem of his pipe. ‘If these are the kind of ideas you’re getting from going to the cinema then it’s time you stopped.’

‘No!’ I stand up straighter and shout the word in his face. ‘You are not taking the cinema away from me. Or Freddie.’

Life simply wouldn’t be worth living without them. The cinema on a Saturday evening is the one spark in my drab, dull weeks at college. Seeing Freddie (even if it only is during his university holidays) is the only time I can really be myself. Without them, I’d wither and waste away in this house filled only with duty and faith.

‘While you still live in my house, you’ll obey me.’ Father stalks across the hall towards me. He towers over me, making me feel painfully small. I fight the urge to cower away from him. My shoulders tense as my hands go clammy. I should just give in. It’d be easier. Freddie would understand. It’s on the tip of my tongue to murmur, Yes, Father . Then an image forms of Freddie waiting for me outside the cinema. My friend. The one person who makes me feel good about myself. My spine straightens. I’m not giving in. Father’s not going to take my only true friend away from me.

‘Why should I when all of your ideas are Victorian?’ I force myself not to look away from the intensity of the anger in his eyes. ‘You’re stuck in the past. You’re a fossil.’

I yank the door open. Drizzle falls like a curtain. I have my foot on the threshold when Father grabs my arm.

‘You will do as I say, girl! Take your coat off. You’re not going out tonight.’

I hate him being this close to me because it always ends with a slap. I cringe back but he’s holding my arm too tightly for me to get away. I’ll have bruises tomorrow. His face is blotchy with anger, his scars painfully pronounced. His nostrils dilate, making his nose hairs quiver. I hate him. I do. He’s the worst thing in my world. I wish he were dead!

My blood pounds in my ears. I have to get out of here before the slap comes. I snatch his pipe from his hand and hurl it across the hallway. There’s a crack as it hits the wall. It breaks into two pieces as it falls, tobacco spilling from the bowl onto the carpet.

‘You insolent little wretch!’ he shouts in my face, spittle hitting my cheeks. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’

I have to get away. I have to see Freddie. Only he can help. I twist in Father’s grip, wrenching my arm free. Off balance, I stumble down the step, jarring my ankle.

‘You will see the error of your ways.’ Father’s voice is pitched low to make sure the neighbours don’t hear. ‘Bible study and no supper when you get back. I’ll mark the chapters for you to read on respecting your elders.’

I don’t look back. ‘I don’t care!’ I stride up the path, past the vegetable beds filled with beans, onions and carrots to supplement our rations, throw the gate open and slam it behind me.

I turn on my heel and march away from him. I have to get to the cinema, to Freddie. Once I’m with Freddie, I’ll be all right. I’m shaky with adrenaline, my hands trembling as I straighten out the sleeve of my coat. There’s cooling sweat under my arms. I turn the corner and suddenly, my legs feel weak as a kitten’s. I lean against a wall and bend over, pressing my hands against my stomach.

What have I done? Father will be furious for days because of the broken pipe. He loves that blasted pipe far more than he loves me or Mum. He certainly spends far more time with it. There’ll be endless pages of the Bible to read when I get home and verses to copy out and I’ll have to do it all without supper or a fire. This is how the disrespectful daughter is punished. But why should I respect him when he’s such a bully? He takes everything away from me that makes me happy. First photography because it’s not suitable for a girl, then school because girls don’t need an education. I can’t let him take Freddie away too. Because if I didn’t have Freddie and our dreams of Hollywood then there’d be nothing worth fighting for. I’d shrink until I was nothing but the dutiful daughter Father wants.

I blow out a long breath as I straighten up. I’ll show him! Freddie and I will go to Hollywood, we’ll get married and we’ll be happy.

I start walking again, summoning the daydreams of our house in the Hollywood Hills with the white walls and the red roof. There’ll be roses around the veranda. We’ll go out for dinner at the Brown Derby and spot the movie stars. There’ll be glamorous parties that I’ll go to in beautiful frocks. I won’t be the Minister’s daughter any more. I’ll be sophisticated and beautiful and feel like a million dollars.

My heartbeat drops, my breathing steadies. Nothing can hurt me when I’m dreaming about Hollywood. Freddie and I will be safe there. Away from Father and bullies like him. We’ll be happy. I just know we will!

* * *

I was too young then to know that life doesn’t work that way. Those dreams sustained me through the dreary post-war months that followed. I clung to them like a life raft when my world turned upside down. Hollywood was my Shangri-La. Little did I realise that, when I finally got there, Hollywood would sink me.